Culture

Games are one of the most important bridges between technology and the arts. Although the UK games sector is at the cutting edge of a rapidly growing global industry, it faces significant challenges in access to finance and skills, and low awareness of just how deeply games are embedded in our culture. The British Games Institute represents a unique opportunity for government to address these challenges with support from a very wide range of arts, education, finance and games organisations. I’m proud to lend my support. Nicola Mendelsohn CBE, VP Facebook EMEA, Co-chair of Creative Industries Council

The UK has a formidable reputation for delivering original, outstanding and unique games titles. In 2009 I suggested to the government that they recognise the tremendous potential harnessed within the games industry to contribute socially, educationally and economically to contemporary culture. Just as the BFI has for long championed film culture, it’s time for games to have a national agency to promote its own specific cultural contribution. That's why I’m joining the call to government to help underwrite a British Games Institute.Lord David Puttnam CBE

Having spent over a decade at the coalface of videogames and culture and witnessed the extraordinary growth of games as part of people’s cultural lives, it's breath-taking that an effective centre of gravity for the support of this activity hasn’t emerged before now. The central, vital pledge of the BGI to develop and deliver a strategy to nurture and support the rich set of existing, brilliant, diverse activities all around the UK, fills a conspicuous vacuum in the current support landscape. The NVF looks forward to working with the BGI, continuing to play its role in developing videogame culture internationally.Iain Simons, CEO, The National Videogame Foundation

The UK's sustained global presence in cultural forms as wide as film, TV, theatre and art reflects in no small part the support of publicly-backed industry institutions. The evidence shows that video games now play an essential role in the UK's cultural as well as economic wellbeing. It's high time we matched this reality with a lottery-backed British Games Institute. Hasan Bakhshi, Executive Director, Creative Economy and Data Analytics, Nesta

We’re happy to be advising the BGI team embed diversity and inclusion into this exciting new agency’s programmes. We believe that ambitious national initiatives which garner broad support right across the games sector can, through strategic interventions, accelerate the pace of change to build a competitive and diverse industry, and we call on the government to back it. Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO, Women in Games

At QUAD we believe in the power of art, film and digital media to change people’s lives for the better. Increasingly we work with artists and film makers interested in using gaming technology and techniques in their practice. The establishment and development of the BGI is something we wholeheartedly support. We see the growth of the BGI, bringing together cultural, industrial, educational and artistic development in a coherent and symbiotic way as being a key future development across all artforms. We look forward to seeing the BGI’s continued development and would fully support a formalised relationship between other existing bodies.Adam Buss, CEO, QUAD

Games developed in the UK lead the world; merging British creative flair in art, animation, music and storytelling with technological prowess in programming. Having a national institution with cultural programmes dedicated to developing this contemporary art form should be supported by the government as an investment in our cultural future.Caroline Norbury MBE, CEO Creative England

The Culture Programme

The BGI operates a range of cultural programmes, including the National Videogame Museum, the Gamecity festival, the Continue programme, its research programme in concert with universities such as Bath Spa, and games culture consultancy:

The National Videogame Arcade was opened in 2015. It is a games cultural centre which educates the public about what games mean, how they are made and who made them. It houses one of the largest collections of games machines, ephemera and materials in the UK, runs galleries and original exhibitions such as Monument Valley, Football Manager, 25 years of Dizzy and Jump, as well as other events. The NVA welcomed well over 100,000 visitors through its doors, and won TripAdvisor awards for excellence on consecutive years. It moved to Sheffield and rebranded as the National Videogame Museum in November 2018.

The Gamecity festival is a city-wide festival celebrating and educating the public about games culture run in Nottingham. Most recently 20,000 people enjoyed talks, performances, events, cosplay and games played on the streets of the city.

Continue is a programme of workshops and conferences that trains arts organisations in how to collaborate with games developers and designers. Funded by the Arts Council, Creative England, Creative Scotland and UK Young Artists, 6 events across the UK in 2018 trained arts practitioners and commissioners on how to work with games.

Our research team has published extensively on games culture and the preservation, interpretation and curation of videogames in museums. We also work with universities such as the University of Nottingham and Sheffield Hallam University to utilise the National Videogame Museum for research impact.

Games culture consultancy is delivered by our highly experienced team to a range of cultural and commercial organisations in the UK and overseas who want to access our expertise in the development, curation and operation of games culture festivals, museums and other programmes.

What more does the BGI want to do?

BGI is developing plans for research, festivals and events that educate the public about the art, science, history and technology of digital games:

We are developing multiple bids with university partners and other organisations to research games history and culture.

We are developing and formalising our Collection of videogames, videogames ephemera and material with the help of the Arts Council of England and the Museum Association.

We will promote diversity in games by researching diversity, pioneering diversity standards, building and implementing new diversity partnerships and programmes, advocacy and education.

Why games culture is important

Games are an important cultural force in the UK today. 60% of the adult population plays games, and 94% of under 25s. Just as Britons have invented some of the world’s most popular traditional games and sports, the UK has invented many games genres. Alan Turing wrote the world’s first games programme (chess) in 1949 before he had a computer to run it on and the first video game (with a screen) was created in Cambridge in 1952, 9 years before the commercial games industry was born in America. With 40 years’ history of making world-leading games in the UK, games are now deeply enmeshed in the fabric of our society. Research by Nesta and DCMS has shown that gamers are more likely to engage in other cultural activities than non-gamers.

Challenges facing games culture

However, this is not widely recognised amongst policy-makers, funding sources and the media:

There is little reliable, up-to-date data on the cultural impact of games on British society.

Focus and research into games as culture by other arts bodies has been limited to date, and what data there is on diversity in games is patchy.

The media often mishandles or misrepresents games as negative, rather than covering games like other equally complex cultural media such as film and television.

Games culture festivals struggle to reach scale due to a lack of support, in contrast to other cultural media.

There is negligible public funding for the preservation of nearly 40 years of games heritage in the UK.

The public has low awareness of the impact, history and value of British-made games.

Support for the BGI’s Culture programme

Games are one of the most important bridges between technology and the arts. Although the UK games sector is at the cutting edge of a rapidly growing global industry, it faces significant challenges in access to finance and skills, and low awareness of just how deeply games are embedded in our culture. The British Games Institute represents a unique opportunity for government to address these challenges with support from a very wide range of arts, education, finance and games organisations. I’m proud to lend my support. Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook, Co-chair of Creative Industries Council

The UK has a formidable reputation for delivering original, outstanding and unique games titles. In 2009 I suggested to the government that they recognise the tremendous potential harnessed within the games industry to contribute socially, educationally and economically to contemporary culture. Just as the BFI has for long championed film culture, it’s time for games to have a national agency to promote its own specific cultural contribution. That’s why I’m joining the call to government to help underwrite a British Games Institute.Lord David Puttnam

Having spent over a decade at the coalface of videogames and culture and witnessed the extraordinary growth of games as part of people’s cultural lives, it’s breath-taking that an effective centre of gravity for the support of this activity hasn’t emerged before now. The central, vital pledge of the BGI to develop and deliver a strategy to nurture and support the rich set of existing, brilliant, diverse activities all around the UK, fills a conspicuous vacuum in the current support landscape. The NVF looks forward to working with the BGI, continuing to play its role in developing videogame culture internationally. Iain Simons, CEO, The National Videogame Foundation

The UK’s sustained global presence in cultural forms as wide as film, TV, theatre and art reflects in no small part the support of publicly-backed industry institutions. The evidence shows that video games now play an essential role in the UK’s cultural as well as economic wellbeing. It’s high time we matched this reality with a lottery-backed British Games Institute. Hasan Bakhshi, Executive Director, Creative Economy and Data Analytics, Nesta

We’re happy to be advising the BGI team embed diversity and inclusion into this exciting new agency’s programmes. We believe that ambitious national initiatives which garner broad support right across the games sector can, through strategic interventions, accelerate the pace of change to build a competitive and diverse industry, and we call on the government to back it. Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO, Women in Games

At QUAD we believe in the power of art, film and digital media to change people’s lives for the better. Increasingly we work with artists and film makers interested in using gaming technology and techniques in their practice. The establishment and development of the BGI is something we wholeheartedly support. We see the growth of the BGI, bringing together cultural, industrial, educational and artistic development in a coherent and symbiotic way as being a key future development across all artforms. We look forward to seeing the BGI’s continued development and would fully support a formalised relationship between other existing bodies. Adam Buss, CEO, QUAD

'Ironically, we're doing exactly what the Government want us to do - minimising our reliance on public funding. So just as almost all our commercial income evaporated, that very quality is why we're excluded from emergency funding schemes.'

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